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Mold, Come Out With Your Hands Up

Crud Crusader A health nut before it was fashionable, Bill Sothern decided in the 1990s to shift from his family’s garment business to something a little more toxic: He was certified as an industrial hygienist. His firm, Microecologies, volunteered its services in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina and is battling household mold problems caused by Sandy. Mr. Sothern, 66, and his team have conducted more than 5,000 investigations over the years, often with the help of a vacuum pump and an “air-o-cell” device, which collects airborne mold spores for laboratory testing. Credit
Benjamin Norman for The New York Times

Bill Sothern, an expert at detecting residential mold, has a cedar-lined hot tub on his verdant south-facing terrace at Madison Avenue and 117th Street. The tub holds 3,000 liters of ionized water heated to 101 degrees Fahrenheit in the winter, 95 degrees in the summer, and the terrace has an elaborate irrigation system.

With all that moisture corralled seven stories above 117th Street, the danger of a leak, which often begets mold, and the potential for lawsuits blamed on leaks, a chronic source of unneighborly New York City courtroom disputes, appear ominous. But Mr. Sothern, occasionally an expert witness in those cases (Bianca Jagger once hired him), is not tempting fate on the home front.

He built the hot tub himself. And having built a career on investigating and remediating environmental hazards — mainly mold colonies, water damage and debilitating airborne agents like secondhand smoke, chemical vapors, lead and asbestos — Mr. Sothern says his conscience is as clear as the drains on his terrace.

The aluminum flashing beneath his patio door is sealed tight; the filters on his heating and ventilation system are changed on cue, second nature for a certified industrial hygienist with a master’s degree in environmental and occupational health. “Some people don’t even know where the drains on their terraces are,” he said. “It’s a recipe for trouble.”

Mr. Sothern, 66, is the founder of Microecologies, a 12-person firm that has conducted more than 5,000 investigations of metropolitan-area homes and businesses, typically occasioned by health-related complaints, since it opened in 1993.

“Our mission was to help city residents achieve clean and healthy indoor environments so that their home really could be a castle,” he said.

Mr. Sothern exited his first career, in his family’s garment business, in 1991 after coming to the conclusion that “the world really didn’t need another T-shirt,” but could probably use a progressive nutritionist. He was steered toward environmental science by a professor at Hunter College and by the discomfiting memory of a dusty D.I.Y. apartment renovation that left his daughter Wendy, then 5, with respiratory allergies. Back then, he was a smoker, too: a double offender.

“Now I am a health nut and an exercise nut,” he said. He is also a professional mold-buster and an author in 2005 of the instructional booklet and video “Mold Cleanup Guidance for New Orleans Residents Affected by Hurricane Katrina,” sponsored by the HUD Office of Healthy Homes, and adopted as a template by the World Health Organization. (Mr. Sothern and a colleague drove to New Orleans after the hurricane to help out.)

The booklet was updated in 2012 to reflect the ravages of Hurricane Sandy; according to Mr. Sothern, some 100,000 homes along the New Jersey, New York and Connecticut coastlines sustained water damage, and “99 percent plus of them are seeing mold problems on structural wood.”

The tiny Microecologies office is a few blocks north of his home. A sign in the window announces “Asthma Intervention.” The storeroom is stocked with full-face respirators; after contracting pneumonitis early in his career while removing mold from the basement of a lighting fixture store on the Bowery, he stopped using half-face respirators.

Green mold, he said, has been recognized since 2004 as highly allergenic to humans. Black mold is that and potentially worse.

Half of the company’s investigations are related to complaints about water damage and mold: “We consider ourselves to be health care providers.” Microecologies also designs exhaust systems for problematic commercial businesses on the ground floors of residential buildings, like cigar stores or dry cleaners.

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To resolve complaints about secondhand smoke, Mr. Sothern said, the simplest and cheapest solution is to install an exhaust fan in the smoker’s apartment. The alternative is to retrofit a building’s ventilation system at a cost of $100,000 to $200,000.

“Secondhand smoke is a big issue,” he said. “Some of the highest-end residential buildings in Manhattan have decided it’s worth it to spend the money and solve the problem. They know their residents have every reason to object to secondhand smoke.”

A spare room in his apartment is stacked with the files — more than 50 — of the cases that Microecologies is handling this spring in addition to the pro bono work it did in the Rockaways section of Queens after Sandy’s inundation.

The firm is also working with Neighborhood Revitalization NYC on a need- and income-based program to provide inspections and mold remediation to 2,000 homes. “We have inspected 300 so far,” he said, “and 100 percent of them showed mold activity.” The devastation here, he added, “is similar to Katrina.”

One hint to residents affected by water damage from Sandy: wallboard with paper facing is a prime conduit for mold and should be avoided in reconstruction projects. When water-soaked, the paper is a breeding ground for Stachybotrys chartarum, the black mold suspected of exercising toxic health effects on humans, especially infants and persons with compromised immune systems. A safer option, Mr. Sothern said, is cement board or gypsum board faced with fiberglass.

A few years ago, Mara Landis hired Microecologies to inspect her Park Avenue duplex. Her family had long-term respiratory and neurological problems, initially traced to mold caused by leaky windows and a burst pipe, and a remediation attempt by a Connecticut company had failed. “They came in wearing their little hazmat suits,” Ms. Landis recalled of that company. “Charged us $100,000, which our insurance paid, but when we moved back into our apartment I immediately started to feel sick again.

“I love this apartment,” she continued, “but I got so upset, I told my husband I thought we were going to have to sell it and move. Then somebody told us that if we really wanted to clean up the mold, Bill Sothern was the guy to call.”

Mr. Sothern assessed the air quality in the duplex and, a bit like a detective, had a hunch the problem was lurking upstairs. “He told me he needed to rip out the floorboards,” Ms. Landis said, “and when he did, there was a paper liner underneath, full of black mold.” Since its removal, she said, she’s been symptom-free.

Mr. Sothern has a low-tech general rule of thumb for breathing easier indoors: “Everybody should crack open a window a quarter-inch no matter the season,” he said. “The air indoors is 10 times more contaminated than the air outdoors at any given time. Your grandmother was right.”

A noxious exception to that golden rule, he added, is a West Side warehouse-to-lofts conversion where the original lead-based paint on the exterior is flaking off and wafting indoors through open windows, sickening some residents. Lawsuits have been filed. Mr. Sothern is an expert witness for the complainants in this case.